Casablanca, city of a hun¬dred faces

On the eve of the 21 st century, arcbi¬tect Ricardo Bofill abandoned his neo-antique style in order to conceive the Casablanca World Trade Center, whose two office towers soar 100-meters high and have since been known as « The Twins ».

An industrial, commercial and finan¬cial capital, Casablanca is the largest conglomeration in the Maghreb. The newly mirrored facades of some of its office buildings ought not dissuade you. Casablanca, fruit of a rich cosmopolitan history, deserves a closer look.

Urbanism, a quite unique history

Casa Blanca, the name given by the Portuguese who formerly inhabited the city, was changed in the 18th century to Dar-El-Beida: which is easily translated into ail languages as the « white city ».

At the beginning of the French protectorate, the city was circumscribed by sur¬rounding wails, which today is the site of the Medina. if 25,000 people were living there in 1907, today Greater Casablanca numbers some 3,500,000 inhabitants.

In 1914, the city created an architec¬tural and urban planning directorate which for ten years was headed by Henri Prost. The directions taken then were not always appreciated, mainly the decision to separate traditional neighbourhoods from newer ones. This was done in order to preserve the integrity of the older sec¬tions so as to better answer the demands of modern urbanism. That was not only done by Prost in Casablanca, but as well in Rabat, Meknes, Fes and Marrakech. This separation could have led to the medinas being reduced to museum-cities, but this did not occur.

The port, which today handles close to 44 % of Moroccan maritime traffic, the main train station as well as the princi¬pal and ample avenues were created then. Around the port, the town spreads out like a fan. To the east, the industrial zone was established while to the west residential areas grew. The prestigious Anfa Hill which overlooks the sea was already appreciated by the Phoe¬nicians in the 6th century. .. The Arab League Park, an immense green public area with arcades, pergolas and shaded outdoor cafes, dates to the 1920s as do many of the buildings in the center of the city.
In order to cope with the extension of a conglomeration of 650,000 inhabitants, a new city planner was appointed in 1952: Michel Ecochard. It was he who was intrigued by the challenge of constructing for even larger numbers of inhabitants and who would expand the industrial zone along the seaside while creating at the same time the new neighbourhoods of Bourgogne, Racine and Beausejour to the west.
Responding to the challenge of an urban vision at the scale of a megalopo¬lis, the conglomeration was built in Wilaya and divided into six large dis¬tricts. This administrative division, the creation of the Urban Agency in 1984, allowed a realistic development strategy under the supervision of the Ministry of the Interior.